When Stephen Harper jumped the shark

I prefer to remain pessimistic about my preferred political party’s chances of winning a general election until all the votes are counted. I’m convinced that any signs of optimism on my part will jinx the results.

Call it superstition — but why take chances? This election year, I held on to my negativity until the very end. And the Liberals won and won big. (Don’t laugh — it’s no crazier than playoff beards in hockey.)

This time, however, I could have shaved off the stubble early, given the Conservative party’s use of a tried-and-failed TV technique which should have told me how highly they rated their own chances of winning. In the world of network television, they call it “jumping the shark”.

The phrase comes from the hit sitcom show Happy Days, which — when ratings started to sag in the fifth season — used a bizarre plot gimmick to goose the numbers: having its most popular character, the Fonz, jump over a shark on waterskis. In the TV drama that was Canada’s 42nd federal election, Stephen Harper played the role of Fonzie. Rob and Doug Ford, a “barbaric cultural practices” snitch line, and Harper himself appearing in a late-game ad telling voters the election was “not about” him — they were the sharks.

You could tell that Harper’s ratings were on a serious decline when his producers featured him on stage with the notorious Fords. This was more than a cameo appearance. This was a politician who had built his brand on law-and-order and family values, sharing a platform with two men with … let’s just call them more flexible morals.

Publicly, Harper was accused of pandering to islamophobia. Privately, I’m convinced, a lot of Canadians of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds saw it as a worrying sign of things to come.

What was Harper thinking? Probably something along the lines of: “How did it ever come to this?” He looked like a political version of Nora Desmond, the delusional silent screen star of Billy Wilder’s noir classic Sunset Boulevard, lost in a fantasy of returning to the big time.

The snitch line was another example of desperation. The Conservatives’ push to ban the niqab during citizenship ceremonies was polling strongly. Instead of leaving well enough alone, they strapped on the waterskis and headed out to sea.

Proposing a tattletale line to encourage people to grass on their neighbours was not only unnecessary (we have police — the police have 911), it smacked of Soviet-style social engineering. Anyone who has been to Russia knows how this kind of thing has long-term social consequences.

Publicly, Harper was accused of pandering to islamophobia. Privately, I’m convinced, a lot of Canadians of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds saw it as a worrying sign of things to come. If Muslims were being targeted now, who might be in the crosshairs next month?

And then there was that sad little ad late in the campaign, in which Harper tried to convince voters not to make the election about him. The message might have been more effective had Harper not used the resources of both his government and his party to brand everything the federal government did as his decision alone. You can’t spend nearly a decade in power under the umbrella of the “Harper government” and then try to switch brands at the last moment.

There were, of course, other sharks circling in the water waiting for Fonzie to jump. Maybe if I’d added them all up on election night, I’d have been more relaxed when the numbers rolled in.

Peter Landry is Principal at Enterprise Canada, a leading public affairs and government relations firm with offices in Toronto, Ottawa and Niagara.

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